"I don't mean those crappy socialist Soviet/Chicom style rights like "the right to a job" and "the right to a place to live." I mean the good old fashion Western Civilization* idea of rights like "the right peaceably assemble" and, "the right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures" and, to be honest I'd like "the right to the product of my own labor." A gov't which takes stuff away from one person and gives it to another to satisfy some politician's sense of "cosmic justice" is not respecting what I would argue are man's basic Rights. "
I agree with you here, especially about the right to the product of one's own labor. In the modern capitalist system though, this right is especially lacking. In fact, that was the basis of one of Marx's complaint on capitalism- alienation from the product of one's labor. If you and I work in a widget factory, at the end of the day we don't take home the widgets we produced that day to sell on our own. We don't even get (directly) paid according to how many widgets we produced that day. We're paid according to selling our labor, not according to the value of what we produce, which we get a fraction of.
Now, many people would argue that people sell their labor according to the laws of supply and demand, but it gets a little fuzzy here. This is getting away from the right to the product of one's own labor though. The "rules" of selling labor may not be the same as selling widgets, and there are many more factors to consider. I think a lot of the reason everyone thinks it's OK to make minimum wage while others are getting fat off your labor is that it's something that has been ingrained in us since birth, so at this point it seems "normal" and there also appears to be a lack of other options.
Another thing is, modern combined labor american capitalism is a relatively recent system. The economic system around the time of the founding fathers was quite different. I think most people were working for themselves, or at least in very small businesses. There were no megacorps back then employing thousands of workers. Back then, one really wasnt that far removed from one's labor. Now if you work in manufacturing, you're turning one screw, instead of building the whole thing.
I think what I wrote before was a bit of an oversimplification, and it has been interpreted as "I think everyone should all have exactly the same amount of stuff", which is not what I was trying to say. It was more of a notion that most people should be able to prosper in the economic system of a country.
I normally wouldnt respond to the AC post, but it brings up a good point.
Speaking of Marxists...
isnt a free-marketeer who blindly clings to the notion of a free-market based on its philosophical merits, regardless of its human impact, just as bad as a communist who does the same thing?
"If you are really in favor of a free market then you must accept that sometimes that will lead to monopolies, and sometimes it will lead to a service that you want not being provided to you. In some markets there is room for lots of companies, in some there isn't. "
If you ask me, this is a good argument against the free market. People should keep in mind that a "free market" should be a means to an end, and not the end itself. If a free market brings prosperity and economic growth to a majority of people, then by all means it's a good thing. However, if a free market screws over 99% of the people in favor of a powerful few, then it's not a good thing.
The first time someone told me about the great new web search "google" I immediately went to my computer, and spelled it correctly, or incorrectly, depending on how you look at it. Because www.googol.com is completely different from www.google.com
The burden of blocking that which is illegal/objectionable/whatever should be on whatever community the content is illegal in. It shouldnt be up to yahoo to ban the sales of 'objectionable' material. If France doesnt like it, France should figure out a way to block it. If nothing else, they should tell the ISPs operating in France to not allow their customers to access yahoo auctions, if they want to continue to operate legally in France.
That's just one suggestion, I'm sure there are other ways to do it. The point is, no country should have legal jurisdiction over an internet company except where the servers are located.
Other than that, if the government of a country/state/town/whatever want to keep the people from seeing a certain site, they can figure out a way to block it themselves.
-J5K
p.s- I'm not advocating blocking sites or justifying the behavior of governments that censor what its citizens can and cant see. If they're going to censor anyway, they should just do it for their citizens, and leave the rest of the world out of it.
I think this is a case of putting something into an electronic form just because we can. Not because there is any big demand for electronic books, or any huge advantage to them. There might be a few advantages over printed books, but there are also plenty of disadvantages.
Sure, they'll probably sell a few, mostly to people who absolutely must have the latest and greatest gadgets. Other than that, I cant imagine ever buying one, myself.
This is what happens when you get the rich, powerful companies feeding misinformation to the public, and to those in power. You've got plenty of people who believe that these companies are just looking out for us, and they wouldnt lie! Put a few of those people in high-ranking positions, and when the DVD people tell them that these hackers/pirates/whatever need to be locked up, the judges believe them.
Now we've got school textbooks being written and published by the logging, oil, chemical, etc industries. My sister's school uses them, and these books are so full of lies it's ridiculous. But, they've got the money and the power, and the ability to form public opinion.
On the bright side of this individual case, IANAL but I'm thinking that since this court ruling essentially declared the guy guilty without a trial, maybe he can use that to his advantage?
So would it be illegal to write a program that, within the 10 hours, zips through the text, doing screen caps, or some other related thing, and saving it to your hard drive, so you can read it later?
I'm sure there's a more sophisticated way to get around this, but that took me all of about 2 seconds to come up with a way to defeat this.
"; they have enough marketing $$$ to establish "TLD-awareness" among consumer masses so people won't confuse their corporate website with my "evilcorp sucks" page."
Proponents of the free market always claim that if someone doesnt like what a company is doing, that individual can always put his money where his mouth is and not buy from that company. But when a company has enough money to drown out the opposing viewpoints, it makes it impossible for a consumer to make an informed decision. While a bunch of activists are screaming "this company sucks" the company just has to spend a little extra money to say "no we dont"
The only reason anyone hears from the activists at all is they *bust their asses* to make sure people hear that side. It's not easy when some huge multinational is devoting even a tiny fraction of their resources to silencing you.
Anyone who has done any activism probably knows how difficult it is to get any kind of a forum to get their point of view heard.
A related topic: I'm sure most of you have seen the commercials for Philip Morris talking about how great they are and how much money they spend doing charitable things. Funny thing is, they spend *way* less on the charity than they do on the advertisements making sure everybody knows it.
This is just increasing the number of domain names without really increasing availibility to anyone. If McDonalds already owns McDonalds.com, and they buy McDonalds.info and McDonalds.biz, those are going to point to the exact same site as McDonalds.com. So why bother? All it does is add 2 new names for the same site.
So now all of the ugly corporate sites will have 3 games instead of one. Whooop-de-shit.
I'm running a P2-400 now. It does just about everything I use it for (games, internet, minor programming tasks)
However, on my last trip to the software store I saw there were some games that had the P2-400 as a minimum requirement, which means that within a few months, there will probably be plenty of games where a P2-400 just wont be fast enough to run what I want to run anymore.
I'm not in a huge rush to upgrade, but I realize my time is running out on the machine I have.
The Taliban doesnt allow the use of the internet. So any american who has ever used the internet is subject to immediate arrest if they go to Afghanistan?
I can just see the kids in school talking about the rad new books they got last night from the internet. "Last night I downloaded the Moby Dick!" "Cool! Send it to me!"
I'd give them about 3 pages into it before they gave up.
It sounds like a big conspiracy to make reading the coolest thing to do. Maybe it's a low-budget way to suppliment the school system.
Even most of the (numerous) sequels were weaker than the original, it did spawn countless imitators, and kept me stuck on my old Apple IIc many frustrated nights while I realized I shouldnt have stabbed the goat back there.
That's not as far from the truth as you might think.
The fast food chains have changed the face of ranching, farming, meat packing, travel, etc.
The moral of the story is, the businesses who stand to make money from a more business friendly internet have the resources to try to make that a reality.
On the other hand, who would want to use their new crappy internet? The money they're making has to come from somewhere- so New Crappy Internet (I think NCI should be the official name) will cost a fortune to anyone who uses it. Nice.
I realize I'm posting this a bit late and as a result I doubt anyone will see it. But, I thought of this this morning, and it reminded me of something else I read in the news.
In Brazil (I believe) a bartender was having some of his liquor stolen, so he put some rat poison in some of the liquor and waited to see who got sick. Turns out the people who were stealing his liquor stole the poisoned bottles, drank it, and died. The bartender probably going to get sent to prison. It doesnt matter that people were stealing from him, he's not allowed to punish the theives himself.
Its the same thing with Sony. It doesnt matter if you *are* making illegal copies, they dont have the right to damage your equipment. If they want to make it so the copied CD wont play, that's their business. Your stereo equipment has nothing to do with it.
If you came to my house and stole some of my CDs, I wouldn't be allowed to go to your house and smash your stereo. Not an exact analogy but the point is- I'm not allowed to take the law into my own hands, and Sony shouldn't be either.
"Because at $450 a pop, even Hilary Rosen and Jack Valenti will finally be able to locate their asses. Albeit with the assistance of one hand, a glass of water, and an LED. "
How much trouble could they possibly have finding their asses, when their heads are crammed so far up there?
reminds me of when I was a kid, a local toy company used to give kids I think $10 or $20 or so to come play with their new toys they've developed, tell them how you like them, etc.
So once when it was my turn to play with their toys, one of them consisted of the GI Joe ocean platform action playset transformed into some sort of space-based toy. But it was the exact same thing as the GI Joe toy, and when I pointed it out to the person conducting the test, she got all flusted and she denied it! Lady, I'm a kid but I'm not stupid, and if there's one thing I know it's toys. And if there's one kind of toy I know, it's GI Joe toys.
It wasnt even the same manufacturer who made GI Joe.
Slashdot Mirror
"I don't mean those crappy socialist Soviet/Chicom style rights like "the right to a job" and "the right to a place to live." I mean the good old fashion Western Civilization* idea of rights like "the right peaceably assemble" and, "the right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures" and, to be honest I'd like "the right to the product of my own labor." A gov't which takes stuff away from one person and gives it to another to satisfy some politician's sense of "cosmic justice" is not respecting what I would argue are man's basic Rights. "
:)
I agree with you here, especially about the right to the product of one's own labor. In the modern capitalist system though, this right is especially lacking. In fact, that was the basis of one of Marx's complaint on capitalism- alienation from the product of one's labor. If you and I work in a widget factory, at the end of the day we don't take home the widgets we produced that day to sell on our own. We don't even get (directly) paid according to how many widgets we produced that day. We're paid according to selling our labor, not according to the value of what we produce, which we get a fraction of.
Now, many people would argue that people sell their labor according to the laws of supply and demand, but it gets a little fuzzy here. This is getting away from the right to the product of one's own labor though. The "rules" of selling labor may not be the same as selling widgets, and there are many more factors to consider. I think a lot of the reason everyone thinks it's OK to make minimum wage while others are getting fat off your labor is that it's something that has been ingrained in us since birth, so at this point it seems "normal" and there also appears to be a lack of other options.
Another thing is, modern combined labor american capitalism is a relatively recent system. The economic system around the time of the founding fathers was quite different. I think most people were working for themselves, or at least in very small businesses. There were no megacorps back then employing thousands of workers. Back then, one really wasnt that far removed from one's labor. Now if you work in manufacturing, you're turning one screw, instead of building the whole thing.
I think what I wrote before was a bit of an oversimplification, and it has been interpreted as "I think everyone should all have exactly the same amount of stuff", which is not what I was trying to say. It was more of a notion that most people should be able to prosper in the economic system of a country.
That's about enough rambling for now
-J5K
"Spoken like a true Marxist."
I normally wouldnt respond to the AC post, but it brings up a good point.
Speaking of Marxists...
isnt a free-marketeer who blindly clings to the notion of a free-market based on its philosophical merits, regardless of its human impact, just as bad as a communist who does the same thing?
-J5K
"If you are really in favor of a free market then you must accept that sometimes that will lead to monopolies, and sometimes it will lead to a service that you want not being provided to you. In some markets there is room for lots of companies, in some there isn't. "
If you ask me, this is a good argument against the free market. People should keep in mind that a "free market" should be a means to an end, and not the end itself. If a free market brings prosperity and economic growth to a majority of people, then by all means it's a good thing. However, if a free market screws over 99% of the people in favor of a powerful few, then it's not a good thing.
-J5K
The first time someone told me about the great new web search "google" I immediately went to my computer, and spelled it correctly, or incorrectly, depending on how you look at it. Because www.googol.com is completely different from www.google.com
-J5K
I'm wondering if the rest of the engineers groan when one of them takes a look at a computer and says:
...
(clears throat)
...
"Imagine a beowulf cluster of these things!"
-J5K
The burden of blocking that which is illegal/objectionable/whatever should be on whatever community the content is illegal in. It shouldnt be up to yahoo to ban the sales of 'objectionable' material. If France doesnt like it, France should figure out a way to block it. If nothing else, they should tell the ISPs operating in France to not allow their customers to access yahoo auctions, if they want to continue to operate legally in France.
That's just one suggestion, I'm sure there are other ways to do it. The point is, no country should have legal jurisdiction over an internet company except where the servers are located.
Other than that, if the government of a country/state/town/whatever want to keep the people from seeing a certain site, they can figure out a way to block it themselves.
-J5K
p.s- I'm not advocating blocking sites or justifying the behavior of governments that censor what its citizens can and cant see. If they're going to censor anyway, they should just do it for their citizens, and leave the rest of the world out of it.
I think this is a case of putting something into an electronic form just because we can. Not because there is any big demand for electronic books, or any huge advantage to them. There might be a few advantages over printed books, but there are also plenty of disadvantages.
Sure, they'll probably sell a few, mostly to people who absolutely must have the latest and greatest gadgets. Other than that, I cant imagine ever buying one, myself.
-J5K
My favorite part of the article was the ad to the right of the story:
"For dozens of live florida cameras, click here!"
I guess they havent learned their lesson.
-J5K
"If you don't protect yourself with available laws, who do you think is going to?"
Maybe we need to realize that the law isnt going to protect us and we need to start taking our protection into our own hands?
-J5K
You're writing an anti-virus virus?
Well, I'm writing an anti-anti-virus virus!
...
(days pass)
OK, then I'm writing an anti-anti-anti-anti-anti-anti.... anti-virus virus!
-J5K
This is what happens when you get the rich, powerful companies feeding misinformation to the public, and to those in power. You've got plenty of people who believe that these companies are just looking out for us, and they wouldnt lie! Put a few of those people in high-ranking positions, and when the DVD people tell them that these hackers/pirates/whatever need to be locked up, the judges believe them.
Now we've got school textbooks being written and published by the logging, oil, chemical, etc industries. My sister's school uses them, and these books are so full of lies it's ridiculous. But, they've got the money and the power, and the ability to form public opinion.
On the bright side of this individual case, IANAL but I'm thinking that since this court ruling essentially declared the guy guilty without a trial, maybe he can use that to his advantage?
-J5K
So would it be illegal to write a program that, within the 10 hours, zips through the text, doing screen caps, or some other related thing, and saving it to your hard drive, so you can read it later?
I'm sure there's a more sophisticated way to get around this, but that took me all of about 2 seconds to come up with a way to defeat this.
Keep trying, copyright whores.
-J5K
"; they have enough marketing $$$ to establish "TLD-awareness" among consumer masses so people won't confuse their corporate website with my "evilcorp sucks" page."
Proponents of the free market always claim that if someone doesnt like what a company is doing, that individual can always put his money where his mouth is and not buy from that company. But when a company has enough money to drown out the opposing viewpoints, it makes it impossible for a consumer to make an informed decision. While a bunch of activists are screaming "this company sucks" the company just has to spend a little extra money to say "no we dont"
The only reason anyone hears from the activists at all is they *bust their asses* to make sure people hear that side. It's not easy when some huge multinational is devoting even a tiny fraction of their resources to silencing you.
Anyone who has done any activism probably knows how difficult it is to get any kind of a forum to get their point of view heard.
A related topic: I'm sure most of you have seen the commercials for Philip Morris talking about how great they are and how much money they spend doing charitable things. Funny thing is, they spend *way* less on the charity than they do on the advertisements making sure everybody knows it.
-J5K
See subject header.
This is just increasing the number of domain names without really increasing availibility to anyone. If McDonalds already owns McDonalds.com, and they buy McDonalds.info and McDonalds.biz, those are going to point to the exact same site as McDonalds.com. So why bother? All it does is add 2 new names for the same site.
So now all of the ugly corporate sites will have 3 games instead of one. Whooop-de-shit.
-J5K
"True; it was changed to prevent confusion with Star Trek II: The Revenge of Khan, "
What really would have been funny if they changed the name to "Return of Khan" thus adding to the confusion. Hilarity ensues! Zany, madcap hijinx!
-J5K
I'm running a P2-400 now. It does just about everything I use it for (games, internet, minor programming tasks)
However, on my last trip to the software store I saw there were some games that had the P2-400 as a minimum requirement, which means that within a few months, there will probably be plenty of games where a P2-400 just wont be fast enough to run what I want to run anymore.
I'm not in a huge rush to upgrade, but I realize my time is running out on the machine I have.
-J5K
Dont go to Afghanistan.
The Taliban doesnt allow the use of the internet. So any american who has ever used the internet is subject to immediate arrest if they go to Afghanistan?
I love the can of worms this opens.
Even if it wasnt public domain...
I can just see the kids in school talking about the rad new books they got last night from the internet. "Last night I downloaded the Moby Dick!" "Cool! Send it to me!"
I'd give them about 3 pages into it before they gave up.
It sounds like a big conspiracy to make reading the coolest thing to do. Maybe it's a low-budget way to suppliment the school system.
-J5K
where's King's Quest? Not even in the top 50?
Even most of the (numerous) sequels were weaker than the original, it did spawn countless imitators, and kept me stuck on my old Apple IIc many frustrated nights while I realized I shouldnt have stabbed the goat back there.
-J5K
Ever read Fast Food Nation?
That's not as far from the truth as you might think.
The fast food chains have changed the face of ranching, farming, meat packing, travel, etc.
The moral of the story is, the businesses who stand to make money from a more business friendly internet have the resources to try to make that a reality.
On the other hand, who would want to use their new crappy internet? The money they're making has to come from somewhere- so New Crappy Internet (I think NCI should be the official name) will cost a fortune to anyone who uses it. Nice.
-J5K
Before my computer programming days I worked in a biology lab.
Not only did we find a bunch of mystery chemicals with no labels, but we found herring sperm.
Unfortunately it was expired. Oh, the things I could have done with the herring sperm.
That's got to be quite a job, working in the herring sperm factory.
*wakes up in the morning*
"Dammit, If I have to whack off one more herring, I'm going to die. I'll just die."
"oh lord, when will you dry up this river of herring sperm I see before me?"
-J5K
Hmmmmm.
I'm some *someone* can come up with a better use for Ms Spears than shooting her into space?
I have a few in mind myself.
-J5K
I realize I'm posting this a bit late and as a result I doubt anyone will see it. But, I thought of this this morning, and it reminded me of something else I read in the news.
In Brazil (I believe) a bartender was having some of his liquor stolen, so he put some rat poison in some of the liquor and waited to see who got sick. Turns out the people who were stealing his liquor stole the poisoned bottles, drank it, and died. The bartender probably going to get sent to prison. It doesnt matter that people were stealing from him, he's not allowed to punish the theives himself.
Its the same thing with Sony. It doesnt matter if you *are* making illegal copies, they dont have the right to damage your equipment. If they want to make it so the copied CD wont play, that's their business. Your stereo equipment has nothing to do with it.
If you came to my house and stole some of my CDs, I wouldn't be allowed to go to your house and smash your stereo. Not an exact analogy but the point is- I'm not allowed to take the law into my own hands, and Sony shouldn't be either.
-J5K
"Because at $450 a pop, even Hilary Rosen and Jack Valenti will finally be able to locate their asses. Albeit with the assistance of one hand, a glass of water, and an LED. "
How much trouble could they possibly have finding their asses, when their heads are crammed so far up there?
-J5K
reminds me of when I was a kid, a local toy company used to give kids I think $10 or $20 or so to come play with their new toys they've developed, tell them how you like them, etc.
So once when it was my turn to play with their toys, one of them consisted of the GI Joe ocean platform action playset transformed into some sort of space-based toy. But it was the exact same thing as the GI Joe toy, and when I pointed it out to the person conducting the test, she got all flusted and she denied it! Lady, I'm a kid but I'm not stupid, and if there's one thing I know it's toys. And if there's one kind of toy I know, it's GI Joe toys.
It wasnt even the same manufacturer who made GI Joe.
-J5K